Autonomous Sampling Platform Development: Radiological Contamination Mapping at SRS

Moya, Nicholas¹  Whiteside, Tad¹ 

[1] Savannah River Site (SRS), Aiken, SC (United States). Savannah River National Lab. (SRNL)

关键词: WATER;    CESIUM 137;    PLUTONIUM 238;    STRONTIUM 90;    AMERICIUM 241;    CURIUM 244;    TRITIUM;    CONTAMINATION;    SAVANNAH RIVER PLANT;    MAPPING;    SAMPLING;    FEASIBILITY STUDIES;    COOLING;    MONITORING;    PERFORMANCE;    SEDIMENTS;    REACTO;   

DOI  :  10.2172/1281774
RP-ID  :  SRNL-STI--2016-00422
PID  :  OSTI ID: 1281774
Others  :  TRN: US1601667

美国|英语

来源: SciTech Connect

【 摘 要 】

From 1961 to 1964, radioactive elements were released from the Savannah River Site into local bodies of water via cooling water charges from the reactors on site. In 1983, the extent of the radioactive contamination was first studied, and elements such as ¹³⁷Cs, ⁹⁰Sr, ²³⁸Pu, ²⁴¹Am, ²⁴⁴Cm, and tritium were found to have seeped from local bodies of water into sediment and the surrounding flora and fauna. The current method of tracking and monitoring radioactive contamination at the SRS is to gather samples and conduct measurements in a laboratory. A cheaper, and safer, method to conduct such measurements would be to automate the process by using an autonomous boat that can travel to locations, conduct measurements, and return home all without human intervention. To introduce this idea, the construction of an autonomous boat prototype was completed to demonstrate the practicality and feasibility of such an idea. The prototype travels to a set of waypoints, stops at each waypoint, and returns when all waypoints have been reached. It does this by employing a simple battery-powered boat with an Arduino controller that steers the boat using a steering algorithm incorporated into a Proportional Integral Derivative (PID) function. A total of three tests were conducted at two different bodies of water; and after working out some hardware problems, the boat drone was able to successfully steer and reach all programmed waypoints. With the prototype complete, the next steps to realizing the final product of the boat drone will include adopting a processing unit with higher-bit architecture, using a bigger boat with a more powerful trolling motor, and incorporating a solar panel for continuous power and round-the-clock performance.